Promise of the Witch King ts-2 Read online

  "Oh my, Arrayan," the voice said in her ear a moment later, cracking with every word. Arrayan hardly registered the voice and barely felt powerful Olgerkhan sweep her into his arms to carry her gently to her bed.

  He continued to whisper to her as he pulled a blanket up over her, but she was already far, far away.

  * * * * *

  "Knellict will not be pleased if we fail in this," Canthan Dolittle said to Athrogate upon the dwarf's return to their small corner table in Muddy Boots and Bloody Blades.

  "How many times ye meaning to tell me that, ye dolt?" asked the black-bearded dwarf.

  "As many as it takes for you to truly appreciate that—"

  Canthan sucked in his breath and held his tongue as Athrogate rose up over the edge of the table, planting both of his calloused hands firmly on the polished wood. The dwarf kept coming forward, leaning over so near to the studious man that the long braids of his beard and the gem-studded ties settled in Canthan's lap. Canthan could feel the heat and smell the stench of the dwarf's breath in his face.

  "Knellict is—" Canthan started again.

  "A mean son of a pig's arse," Athrogate finished for him. "Yeah, I'm knowin' it all too well, ye skinny dolt. Been the times when I've felt the sting of his crackling fingers, don't ye doubt."

  "Then we must not forget."

  "Forget?" Athrogate roared in his face.

  Canthan blanched as all conversation around their table stopped. The dwarf, too, caught on to the volume of his complaint, and he glanced back over his shoulder to see several sets of curious eyes focusing on him.

  "Bah, what're ye lookin' at, lest it be yer doom?" he barked at them. Athrogate held no small reputation for ferocity at the Vaasan Gate, having dominated the hunt for bounty ears for so many months, and having engaged in more than a dozen tavern brawls, all of which had left his opponents far more battered than he. The dwarf narrowed his eyes, accentuating his bushy eyebrows all the more, and gradually sank back into his chair. When the onlookers finally turned their attention elsewhere, Athrogate wheeled back on his partner. "I ain't for forgetting nothing," he assured Canthan.

  "Forgive my petulance," said Canthan. "But please, my short and stout friend, never again forget that you are here as my subordinate."

  The dwarf glowered at him.

  "And I am Knellict's underling," Canthan went on, and this mention of the powerful, merciless archmage did calm Athrogate somewhat.

  Canthan was indeed Knellict's man, and if Athrogate moved on Canthan, he'd be facing a very angry and very potent wizard in a short amount of time. Knellict had left the Fugue and gone back to the Citadel of Assassins, but Knellict could move as quickly as he could unexpectedly.

  "We ain't to fail in this," the dwarf grumbled, coming back to the original point. "Been watching them two closely."

  "They go out into Vaasa almost every day. Do you follow?"

  The dwarf snorted and shook his head. "I ain't for meeting no stinking drow elf out there in the wilds," he explained. "I been watching them on their return. That's enough."

  "And if they don't return?"

  "Then they're dead in the bogs and all the better for us," Athrogate replied.

  "They are making quite a reputation in short order," said Canthan. "Every day they come in with ears for bounty. They are outperforming much larger groups, by all reports, and indeed have long since surpassed the amount of coin handed out at the Vaasan Gate for bounty in so short a time—a performance until very recently pinnacled by yourself, I believe."

  Athrogate grumbled under his breath.

  "Very well, then, though I would have hoped that you would trail them through all their daily routines," said Canthan.

  "Ye thinking they got contacts in the wastelands?"

  "It remains a possibility. Perhaps the drow elves have risen from their Underdark holes to find a spot in Vaasa—they have been known to seize similar opportunities."

  "Well, if that Jarlaxle fellow's got drow friends in Vaasa, then I'm not for going there." He fixed Canthan's surprised expression with a fierce scowl. "I'm tougher'n any drow elf alone," he growled, "but I'm not for fighting a bevy o' the damned tricksters!"

  "Indeed."

  Athrogate paused for a long time, letting that «indeed» sink in, trying to gauge if there was any sarcasm in the word or if it was honest acceptance and agreement.

  "Besides," he said at length, "Hobart's boys been seeing them often, as've others. Rumors're sayin' that Jarlaxle's got himself a goblin scout what's leadin' him to good hunting grounds."

  "That cannot sit well with Hobart," Canthan reasoned. "The Kneebreakers view goblins as vermin to be killed and nothing more."

  "A lot o' them pair's not sitting well with Hobart of late, so I'm hearin'," Athrogate agreed. "Seems some o' them halflings're grumbling about the ears Entreri and Jarlaxle're bringing in. Seems them halflings lost a bunch o' their own earned ears."

  "A pair of thieves? Interesting."

  "It'd be a lot more interestin' and a lot easier to figure it all out if yer friends would get us some history on them two. They're a powerful pair—it can't be that they just up and started slaughterin' things. Got to be a trail."

  "Knellict is fast on the trail of that information, do not doubt," said Canthan. "He is scouring the planes of existence themselves in search of answers to the dilemma of Artemis Entreri and this strange drow, Jarlaxle. We will have our answers."

  "Be good to know how nasty we should make their deaths," grumbled the dwarf.

  Canthan just clucked and let it go. Indeed, he suspected that Knellict would send him a message to do just that and be rid of the dangerous pair.

  So be it.

  * * * * *

  Olgerkhan grunted and sucked in his breath as poor Arrayan tried to eat the soup he'd brought. Her hand shook so badly she spilled most of the steaming liquid back into the bowl long before the large spoon had come up level with her mouth. Again and again she tried, but by the time the spoon reached her mouth and she sipped, she could barely wet her lips.

  Finally Olgerkhan stepped forward and took Arrayan's shaking hand.

  "Let me help you," he offered.

  "No, no," Arrayan said. She tried to pull her hand away but didn't have much strength behind it. Olgerkhan easily held on. "It is quite…"

  "I am your friend," the large half-orc reminded her.

  Arrayan started to argue, as the prideful woman almost always did when someone fretted over her, but she looked into Olgerkhan's eyes and her words were lost in her throat. Olgerkhan was not a handsome creature by any standards. He favored his orc heritage more than his human, with a mouth that sported twisted tusks and splotchy hair sprouting all over his head and face. He stood crooked, his right shoulder lower than his left, and farther forward. While his muscled, knotted limbs exuded strength, there was nothing supple or typically attractive about them.

  But his eyes were a different matter, to Arrayan at least. She saw tenderness in those huge brown orbs, and a level of understanding well beyond Olgerkhan's rather limited intelligence. Olgerkhan might not be able to decipher mystical runes or solve complex equations, but he was not unwise and never unsympathetic.

  Arrayan saw all of that, staring at her friend—and he truly was the best friend she had ever known.

  Olgerkhan's huge hand slid down her forearm to her wrist and hand, and she let him ease the spoon from her. As much for her friend's benefit as for her own, Arrayan swallowed her pride and allowed Olgerkhan to feed her.

  She felt better when he at last tipped the bowl to her mouth, letting her drink the last of its contents, but she was still very weak and overwhelmed. She tried to stand and surely would have fallen had not her friend grabbed her and secured her. Then he scooped her into his powerful arms and walked her to her bed, where he gently lay her down.

  As soon as her head hit her soft pillow, Arrayan felt her consciousness slipping away. She noted a flash of alarm on her half-orc friend's face, and as blackness cl
osed over her, she felt him shake her, gently but insistently, several times.

  A moment later, she heard a thump, and somewhere deep inside she understood it to be her door closing. But that hardly mattered to Arrayan as the darkness enveloped her, taking her far, far away from the land of waking.

  * * * * *

  Olgerkhan's arms flailed wildly as he scrambled down the roads of Palishchuk, heading to one door then another, changing direction with every other step. Palishchuk was not a close-knit community; folk kept to themselves except in times of celebration or times of common danger. Olgerkhan didn't have many friends, and all but Arrayan, he realized, were out hunting that late-summer day.

  He gyrated along, gradually making his way south. He banged on a couple more doors but no one answered, and it wasn't until he was halfway across town that he realized the reason. The sound of the carnival came to his ears. Wingham had opened for business.

  Olgerkhan sprinted for the southern gate and to the wagon ring. He heard Wingham barking out the various attractions to be found and charged in the direction of his voice. Pushing through the crowd he inadvertently bumped into and nearly ran over poor Wingham. The only thing that kept the barker up was Olgerkhan's grasping hands.

  Large guards moved for the pair, but Wingham, as his senses returned, waved them away.

  "Tell me," he implored Olgerkhan.

  "Arrayan," Olgerkhan gasped.

  As he paused to catch his breath, the half-orc noticed the approach of a human—he knew at first glance that it was a full human, not a half-orc favoring the race. The man looked to be about forty, with fairly long brown hair that covered his ears and tickled his neck. He was lean but finely muscled and dressed in weathered, dirty garb that showed him to be no stranger to the Vaasan wilderness. His bright brown eyes, so striking against his ruddy complexion and thick dark hair, gave him away. Though Olgerkhan had not seen him in more than two years, he recognized the human.

  Mariabronne, he was called, a ranger of great reputation in the Bloodstone Lands. In addition to his work at the Vaasan Gate, Mariabronne had spent the years since Gareth's rise and the fall of Zhengyi patrolling the Vaasan wilds and serving Palishchuk as a courier to the great gates and as a guide for the half-orc city's hunting parties.

  "Arrayan?" Wingham pressed. He grabbed Olgerkhan's face and forced the gasping half-orc to look back at him.

  "She's in bed," Olgerkhan explained. "She's sick."

  "Sick?"

  "Weak… shaking," the large half-orc explained.

  "Sick, or exhausted?" Wingham asked and began to nod.

  Olgerkhan stared at him, confused, not knowing how to answer.

  "She tried the magic," Mariabronne whispered at Wingham's side.

  "She is not without magical protections," said Wingham.

  "But this is Zhengyi's magic we are speaking of," said the ranger, and Wingham conceded the point with a nod.

  "Bring us to her, Olgerkhan," Wingham said. "You did well in coming to us."

  He shouted some orders at his compatriots, telling them to take over his barker's spot, and he, Mariabronne, and Olgerkhan rushed out from the wagon ring and back into Palishchuk.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DREAMERS

  Entreri rocked his chair up on two legs and leaned back against the wall. He sipped his wine as he watched the interaction between Jarlaxle and Commander Ellery. The woman had sought the drow out specifically, Entreri knew from her movements, though it was obvious to him that she was trying to appear as if she had not. She wasn't dressed in her armor, nor in any uniform of the Army of Bloodstone, and seemed quite the lady in her pink dress, subtly striped with silvery thread that shimmered with every step. A padded light gray vest completed the outfit, cut and tightly fitted to enhance her womanly charms. She carried no weapon—openly, at least—and it had taken Entreri a few minutes to even recognize her when first he'd spotted her among the milling crowd. Even on the field when she had arrived in full armor, dirty from the road, Entreri had thought her attractive, but now he could hardly pull his eyes from her.

  When he realized the truth of his feelings it bothered him more than a little. When had he ever before been distracted by such things?

  He studied her movements as she spoke to Jarlaxle, the way she leaned forward, the way her eyes widened, sparkling with interest. A smile, resigned and helpless, spread across the assassin's face and he briefly held out his glass in a secret toast to his dark elf companion.

  "This chair and that chair free o' bums?" a gruff voice asked, and Entreri looked to the side to see a pair of dirty dwarves staring back at him.

  "Well?" the other one asked, indicating one of the three empty chairs.

  "Have the whole table," Entreri bade them.

  He finished his drink with a gulp then slipped from his seat and moved away along the back wall. He took a roundabout route so as to not interrupt Jarlaxle's conversation.

  * * * * *

  "Well met to you, Comman—Lady Ellery," Jarlaxle said, and he tipped his glass of wine to her.

  "And now you will claim that you didn't even recognize me, I expect."

  "You underestimate the unique aspect of your eyes, good lady," said the drow. "In a full-face helm, I expect I would not miss that singular beauty."

  Ellery started to respond but rocked back on her heels for just an instant.

  Jarlaxle did well to mask his grin.

  "There are questions I would ask of you," Ellery began, and her voice gained urgency when the drow turned away.

  He spun right back, though, holding a second glass of wine he had apparently found waiting on the bar. He held it out to the woman, and she narrowed her eyes and glanced around suspiciously. How was it that the second glass of wine had been waiting there?

  Yes, I knew you would come to me, Jarlaxle's smile clearly revealed when Ellery accepted the drink.

  "Questions?" the drow prompted the obviously flabbergasted woman a few moments later.

  Ellery tried to play it calm and collected, but she managed to dribble a bit of wine from the corner of her mouth and thought herself quite the clod while wiping it.

  "I have never met a dark elf before, though I have seen a pair from afar and have heard tales of a half-drow making a reputation for herself in Damara."

  "We do have a way of doing that, for good or for ill."

  "I have heard many tales, though," Ellery blurted.

  "Ah, and you are intrigued by the reputation of my dark race?"

  She studied him carefully, her eyes roaming from his head to his feet and back up again. "You do not appear so formidable."

  "Perhaps that is the greatest advantage of all."

  "Are you a warrior or a wizard?"

  "Of course," the drow said as he took another sip.

  The woman's face crinkled for a brief moment. "It is said that drow are masters of the arts martial," she said after she recovered. "It is said that only the finest elf warriors could do individual battle against the likes of a drow."

  "I expect that no elves who sought to prove such a theory are alive to confirm or deny."

  Ellery's quick smile in response clued Jarlaxle in to the fact that she was catching on to his wit—a manner that was always a bit too dry and unrelenting for most surface dwellers.

  "Is that a confirmation or a boast?" she asked.

  "It just is."

  A wicked smile grew on the woman's face. "Then I say again, you do not look so formidable."

  "Is that an honest observation or a challenge?"

  "It just is."

  Jarlaxle held out his glass and Ellery tapped hers against it. "Some day, perhaps, you will happen upon me in Vaasa and have your answer," Jarlaxle said. "My friend and I have found some success in our hunts out there."

  "I have noted your trophies," she said, and again her eyes scanned the drow head to toe.

  Jarlaxle laughed aloud. He quieted quickly, though, under the intensity of Ellery's stare, her bright eyes boring into hi
s.

  "Questions?" he asked.

  "Many," she answered, "but not here. Do you think that your friend will be well enough without you?"

  As she asked, both she and Jarlaxle turned to the table in the back corner, where the drow had left Entreri, only to find that he was gone.

  When they looked back at each other, Jarlaxle shrugged and said, "Answers."

  They left the bustle of Muddy Boots and Bloody Blades behind, Jarlaxle following the woman as she easily navigated the myriad corridors and hallways of the wall complex. They moved down one side passage and crossed through the room where monster ears were exchanged for bounty. Moving toward the door at the rear of the chamber gave the drow an angle to see behind the desks, and he spotted a small chest.

  He made a note of that one.

  The door led the pair into another corridor. A right turn at a four-way intersection led them to another door.

  Ellery casually fished a key out of a small belt pouch, and Jarlaxle watched her curiously, his senses more acutely attuning to his surroundings. Had the warrior woman planned their encounter from the beginning?

  "A long way to walk for the answers to a few questions," he remarked, but Ellery just glanced back at him, smiling.

  She grabbed a nearby torch and took it with her into the next chamber, moving along the wall to light several others.

  Jarlaxle's smile widened along with his curiosity as he came to recognize the purpose of the room. Dummies stood silently around the perimeter and archery targets lined the far wall. Several racks were set here and there, all sporting wooden replicas of various weapons.

  Ellery moved to one such rack and drew forth a wooden long sword. She studied it for a moment then tossed it to Jarlaxle, who caught it in one hand and sent it into an easy swing.

  Ellery drew out a second blade and lifted a wooden shield.

  "No such shield for me?" the drow asked.

  With a giggle, Ellery tossed the second sword his way. "I have heard that your race favors a two-bladed fighting style."

  Jarlaxle caught the tossed blade with the edge of the first wooden sword, breaking its fall, balancing it, then sending it into a controlled spin.